If Luke was Rey (a.k.a. The Star Wars: A New Hope “Mary Sue” Rewrite)

I present to you the Star Wars: A New Hope “Mary Sue/Marty Stu” rewrite, for the writer who thinks Luke is too human and relatable and should’ve been as perfect, plastic and flawless as Rey. Because boys need role models who are superior to themselves in every way.

Luke is an expert survivalist living on his own on Tatooine. He isn’t subservient to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. He loyally waits for a lost companion to return.

Luke steals R2-D2 from a Sand Person on a Bantha who has captured the droid. The Sand Person just looks at him and rides away.

Luke can understand everything R2-D2 says. C-3PO is written out since he’s not needed to translate.

Luke finds Obi-Wan and tells him he’s just a nobody and didn’t even know the Force was real. Obi-Wan hands Luke his father’s saber and then disappears from the movie. No training required.

Luke experiences a “vision” upon touching the saber for unexplained reasons. Magic lightsaber?

Luke enters the Cantina and knocks down Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan with a stick when they threaten him.

Luke finds the Falcon with only Chewie inside as TIE Fighters start bombing the area. He jumps in and flies it with some wild maneuvers through Beggar’s Canyon while Chewie works the gun port. They destroy the TIEs and return to get Han.

Chewie is injured while running from Stormtroopers to get to the Falcon and Luke takes over as co-pilot.

Luke fixes the Falcon’s malfunctions by himself before Han can figure out what to do.

Han is so impressed with Luke that by the time they get to the remains of Alderaan, he offers Luke a permanent job on his crew.

They sneak into a back door on the Death Star unnoticed and somehow instantly find Leia’s cell.

Luke uses the Jedi Mind Trick on the guards at Leia’s cell to get inside. (First time the Jedi Mind Trick appears in the movie.)

Leia says Luke is amazing, thanks him and won’t stop talking about wanting to run away with him and devote herself to helping him. Luke is not interested and says he just wants to be friends.

Han somehow instantly finds the head Stormtrooper Commander and says he’ll kill him if he doesn’t shut down the Death Star’s magnetic shields. The Stormtrooper Commander complies and they throw him in the trash compactor.

Luke attacks Darth Vader and holds his own. He drops his saber but he is able to Force grab it back before Vader can. (First time Force grab is seen in the movie.) Vader offers to train Luke. Luke lands several blows on Vader and cuts off his hand while remaining unscathed and Vader collapses in a heap. Suddenly, there is an explosion that ruptures the platform between them and Luke leaves to join Leia, Chewie and R2 back on the Falcon.

Meanwhile, Wedge leads a small squad to do a bombing run on the Death Star. He easily hits the target without facing much resistance or even thinking about it much and the Death Star blows up.

Luke officially joins the Rebellion at the end of the movie and is instantly selected to pilot a ship on a vital mission they’ve been waiting years to do. Their best pilot who just blew up the Death Star, Wedge, is passed over.

And there you have it. Star Wars: A New Hope as bland, generic, shallow, Saturday morning cartoon space opera, without depth, meaning, humanity, heart or soul, a.k.a. Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

“Luke steals R2-D2 from a Sand Person on a Bantha who has captured the droid. The Sand Person just looks at him and rides away.”
*A pretty big stretch to equate the Teedo character with a sand person. He’s more like the equivalent of a lone Jawa. So let’s re-write that and see how it looks:, “Luke steals R2-D2 from a lone Jawa who has captured the droid. The Jawa just looks at him and rides away.” There. That’s better.

“Luke can understand everything R2-D2 says. C-3PO is written out since he’s not needed to translate.”
*Rey isn’t the only person who understands BB-8. Poe can too, so I guess it’s now a thing in Star Wars. Did you really want another protocol droid tagging along translating everything?

“R2-D2 follows Luke around obediently instead of running away and generally just thinks Luke’s awesome.”
*R2-D2 was on a specific mission to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, not Luke. He didn’t know or care who the fuck Luke was. BB-8, on the other hand, was just trying to find a friendly face for protection until Poe could find him.

“Luke experiences a “vision” upon touching the saber for unexplained reasons”
* Exactly right. Unexplained. Assume an explanation is coming.

“Luke fixes the Falcon’s malfunctions by himself before Han can figure out what to do.”
*Oh, you mean like Artoo did in TESB?

“Luke attacks Darth Vader and holds his own. He drops his saber but he is able to Force grab it back before Vader can. (First time Force grab is seen in the movie.) Vader offers to train Luke. Luke lands several blows on Vader and cuts off his hand while remaining unscathed and Vader collapses in a heap.”
*Huh? No one’s hand gets cut off in The Force Awakens. I would describe the duel as, “Rey, who is very experienced using a staff for self-defense, uses the lightsaber defensively against the gravely injured Kylo Ren’s attack. Once Ren begins to succumb to the wound from Chewbacca’s bowcaster, and has exhausted himself, she manages to land some offensive blows.

Finally, your last paragraph is hilarious. Looking for depth or meaning in a Star Wars film. Unreal. There never WAS depth or meaning. They literally made this shit up as they went, retro-fitting the back-story (usually sloppily) movie by movie. As it was, the Force Awakens was completely in the spirit of A New Hope; action-packed, fast-paced, humourous, emotional, with likeable, relatable characters, and above all (finally!) well-acted. Can’t wait for Episode VIII.

Jawas have guns, are feisty and can defend themselves. Even little Wicket threatened Leia with his spear. If that creature had no way of defending his stash from such a simple theft, how in the world has he survived in that lawless environment?

Poe himself is another over-powered, flawless character. I don’t recall him understanding what BB-8 said or having a conversation with BB-8, but if he did it’s still a stupid development and lazy, unimaginative writing. When you change the rules of the universe because you can’t write a story that works within them, you’re failing as a writer. It’s something they fail on again and again in this movie. Instead of asking themselves, “What is a good story that can happen within the parameters of the Star Wars universe?,” they ask, “How can I change the rules of the Star Wars universe to accomodate the pre-fabricated story I have in mind?” They could have had an electronic translator headset to understand the droid. Or why not install an English-speaking program in the droid? He could’ve at least had a limited vocabulary like Wall-E. That also would’ve made him a more original character rather than just an orange R2-D2 on a wheel. I certainly would have welcomed having C-3PO tag along too, one of the saga’s most beloved signature characters who was given nothing of consequence to do here.

BB-8 was looking for a friendly face and of course he chose Rey, like every other character in the movie looking for a new best friend, partner or lover did. Even when she rebuffed him, he insisted on persuading her to like him. Nothing screams “Mary Sue” more than that. Rey comes out of nowhere to instantly become the most popular girl in the galaxy.

Luckily ANH didn’t frustrate us by telling us to wait until the next movie to simply explain what the events we saw on screen meant. That’s the kind of “tease” writing that you get in a crappy TV series.

Artoo fixed the Falcon when its owner, Han, wasn’t there. It makes perfect sense that droids are at least as knowledgeable about fixing things as any human. And pointing out that one character solved one problem in a movie where he probably accomplished almost nothing else is a pitiful defense of a Mary Sue character whose prowess outshined every other character in the movie every step of the way.

Obi-Wan isn’t in this draft because like Rey, Luke didn’t need anyone to teach him about the Force. So you seem to have missed that point when you think you can just insert Obi-Wan into the script out of nowhere.

A bo staff is not a lightsaber. If a lightsaber was just like any other weapon that anyone could easily use, tons of people all over the galaxy would be using them. Everything we’ve been told suggests there is an art to using a lightsaber. We could’ve had Rey enter the intergalactic Olympic gymnastic competition even though there’s no indication she’s ever studied gymnastics before and had her win that too. That would be equally stupid and annoying. Ah, but perhaps she’s naturally gifted or had some training as a small child that she can’t remember anymore but which got reawakened somehow when she got zapped with something. Totally plausible.

Rey inflicted more than offensive blows, she could’ve inflicted a death blow if not for the deus earthquake machina. The fact that she encountered Kylo Ren after he was weakened supports her being a Mary Sue. Of all the characters, why was she chosen to be the lucky one who got to fight Kylo Ren right when he was most vulnerable? The very definition of a Mary Sue says that the character doesn’t earn his or her achievements but has everything handed to him or her.

With respect to this movie supposedly having the best acting in Star Wars, I beg to differ. Consider Finn’s groan-inducing, hyperactive, hammy line delivery, Hux’s ridiculous over-the-top Nazi speechifying, Kylo’s rambling emo rants and unintentionally comical tantrums, Poe smiling big for the camera more than any actor since Karen Allen in Crystal Skull, and Rey putting on a blank, vacant stare for the entire third act for some reason, I guess to show us she’s been possessed by the Force and isn’t herself anymore? I think Harrison Ford’s performance started out even rustier and crustier than he was in Crystal Skull, but he got better once they got away from the tired rehash of his smuggling days. Carrie Fisher also gave a great performance. But the overall acting quality doesn’t compare to the Star Wars movie that truly had the most masterful acting of them all, ESB.

Neither does TFA have the visionary action scenes, emotional moments nor sense of humor of ANH. It fails to give us relatable characters in a big way. It is fast-paced, but to its detriment. ANH slowed down to let us feel a sense of wonder and awe at things like the size of the Death Star, the twin suns on Tatooine or even the unique appearances of the droids and aliens. TFA races through everything without ever giving us a moment to stop, think and feel about what we’re seeing, most unforgivably when it comes to the death of a major character. It’s understandable in a cynical way though, since this is a script that only gets worse the more you stop and think about it.

In your last paragraph, you descend into one of the CLASSIC and totally specious tropes of the TFA defenders by claiming that ALL Star Wars movies are equally bad, shallow, meaningless, etc. Too bad the American Film Institute missed that memo when they put Star Wars on the top 100 films of all time list. Then there are the IMDB users who rank ESB and SW 12th and 19th of all time. You don’t get those kinds of accolades for a movie that has no depth and meaning. You also don’t get legions of lifelong devoted fans, as the OT has earned. The classically structured hero’s journey of Luke is as deeply inspiring to people as any legend in any culture ever has been.

You can find on the Star Wars Blu-ray boxed set a video of Lucas explaining the philosophy and meaning of the Force to the writers of the Clone Wars cartoon. The amount of depth, detail and thought that he put into just that aspect of the mythos he created is fascinating and astonishing. It is a discussion of the Force that touches on the very heart of what it means to be moral human in this world, not merely an enumeration of a bunch of silly magic powers the way that J.J. Abrams views the Force. If you can’t appreciate this depth compared to the cheap, hacked-out, derivative, heartless, soulless, clumsy special-effects blockbusters put out week after week these days by the likes of J.J. Abrams, then you are both a lost cause and a lost soul.

JediJones77 said: “A bo staff is not a lightsaber. If a lightsaber was just like any other weapon that anyone could easily use, tons of people all over the galaxy would be using them.”
Every weapons site i’ve visited say you’re wrong. This is from a martial arts site: “stick and sword training gives you the foundation to use almost any non-projectile weapon in self defense, is largely transferable to unarmed fighting, will teach you lessons you can use in other areas of self defense. The principles and training methods listed here work for both stick and sword in general”

“Luke can understand everything R2-D2 says. C-3PO is written out since he’s not needed to translate.”
*Rey isn’t the only person who understands BB-8. Poe can too, so I guess it’s now a thing in Star Wars. Did you really want another protocol droid tagging along translating everything?

**I would presume growing up on an alien planet with multitudes of languages that you need to learn to be able to survive that almost anyone and everyone on Jakku can speak droid.

And Lucas literally did Star Wars because he got pissy that he couldn’t buy the rights to Flash Gordon. Which is why Star Wars was made.

Droidspeak/binary. It’s actually very rare to be fluent in more than a handful of languages since Galactic basic gets you by. It’s nearly impossible for her to be able to have come across and/or had enough contact to understand any of the three Wookie languages. Wookies being one of the minority of races that cannot speak any form of Basic. (There was one in the books who could because he had a most convenient speech impediment.)

What’s actually missing from Rey is her displaying actual interest, reading or socialization with aliens for her to even remotely pick up ‘fluency’ with any language. If she kept her contact minimal and was as combative as her relationships seem to be indicated by the film… she kind of suggests she might have friends but that doesn’t seem to pan out.

She insists she’s a pilot at one point but also admits she’s never left the planet. That’s hardly a sparkling resume for a pilot. She knows how to use a hyperdrive despite never having done so before, something Solo lambasted Luke for since Luke was unaware of the complex calculations and time the computer was taking so they wouldn’t just jump into a sun and die. Luke was a gifted pilot and there are plenty of allusions to how he liked to spend his time. He was almost blushing and modest about it but it was his interest.. and layered into friendly and professional conversations he had with people. A nice way to sell it to the audience.

if Rey’s interest were primarily as an engineer and mechanic. There was a LOT more they could have dragged out of her character while working on the falcon with solo. “why would you even do that?” ‘because sweetheart, it works.’ “Do you have any idea what that’s doing to your.. x!?’ “huh, we did have to replace that a lot.” ‘Set me down right now. I want off this deathtrap!’ “We’re in a bit of a rush, I’m sure you can find your own way out.” ‘Urrrgh’ “watch the first step! –*stage whispered*Chewie, can we do anything about the x?’ *she comes back* “Missed us already huh–HEY! that’s the regulator off my-” ‘Yes. And in a pinch.. it can be used… *tinker* as an x!’ “Oh… well! carry on then! *stage whisper as he leaves her tinkering * Chewie… did you know we could-? no? …keep an eye on her. And her away from me before I either – I don’t know! Shoot her or give her a job.” And I have almost no writing skill!

The most important thing for Rey’s character.. even without knowing her past. Even without knowing her lineage! Is to know her interests and what motivates her. How she looks out at the universe and in at herself. Her perceived place in the world, how she views her acquaintances and comrades. To see how they see her and interact with her. Someone who is good at everything specializes in and shows interest in nothing. Flaws are what make characters interesting. Overcoming trials, duress and hardship is what makes a hero.

The unflattering and horrible truth is. We skipped over everything and every event that would have been
interesting and telling about Rey. Left with an endgame high level character and badass who at best will just be re classing into a jedi mystic from her previous ultimate desert survialist/mechanic. It’s tangential growth rather than all the important stuff and we’re all just hanging out for *FLASHBACKS* to explain core character concept. The stuff that could let us relate with her!!

Book or film. This is just plain bad writing. And she as a character is left squarely in Mary Sue territory because of it. More time spent with the character.. or spent in time periods that were skipped over would help. (that and there were tonnes of technical problems with the film like: communicators don’t work in hyperspace, You can’t jump through a solid object or that close to a planet, traveling anywhere in hyperspace takes days, weeks or months. Serious LONG journeys that were kind of glossed over and all the character piece potential wasted.)

This makes me sad.

5/10 in my books tops. Score can climb a bit higher if the next film provides actual backstory and relevance to the skill levels she’s supposed to have and can make her relateable.

I know very well that Flash Gordon was where Lucas’ initial inspiration for the Star Wars series came from. But we all know that the storyline was developed into something far more admired and acclaimed than Flash Gordon ever was. If Disney continues to dumb it down, we may soon no longer be able to discern a difference between Flash Gordon and a Star Wars movie.

Just an addendum to R2-D2 fixing the Falcon in ESB. Whilst Leia, Chewie and Lando were running around Cloud City trying to retrieve Han then escape from the Storm troopers. R2-D2 plugged into a computer terminal while trying to open a door. While plugged in and chatting to the City’s central computer, he found out the Falcon’s hyper drive had been fixed but disabled be the imperials. C-3PO mentions both facts while talking to R2-D2, once while under fire in Cloud City and once when on the Falcon, while they’re running from the TIE fighters.

P.S. Luke grew up surrounded by droids, but he didn’t start to understand R2-D2 until at least ESB

I don’t think Luke was ever shown to understand R2-D2. The clear impression in the OT was that only another droid or a computer could translate a droid. Luke never gave any impression he was understanding R2 except when reading the translation on his X-Wing’s computer.

Just one other thing, In ESB, Artoo knew about the hyperdrive being disabled because he had a conversation with Cloud City’s central computer. It’s actually mentioned in the movie before he fixes it. When he’s trying to open the door to the falcon’s landing pad he’s talking to 3po, 3po yell at him that “I don’t care that the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon’s fixed, just open the door” or words to that effect. When they’re on the Falcon fleeing the Tie fighters and Artoo’s fixing 3po, another conversation takes place

3po “Why don’t we just go in to hyper space?
Artoo “beeps and whistles
3po “We can’t? How do you know the hyperdrive is deactivated?”
Artoo “more beeps and whistles
3po “The city’s central computer told you? Artoo Deetoo, you know better than to trust a strange computer!

P.S. Thank goodness he never got the rights to Flash Gordon! I’m sure his remake would have been epic, but, we never would’ve gotten Sta Wars!

Yeah thank god for this breakdown right here! Rey IS a Mary Sue, period. It pisses me off when I see a bunch of twats whine about people calling Rey a Mary Sue then claiming “mysogyny” but these same twats can call Luke, Batman or whatever male hero a Gary Stu and that is OK? Double standards! Got to love em’!

But I have seen so many people try to explain why Rey is so great that they have basically diminished every other characters importance just to do it. I mean take Kylo Ren for instance. Since this film came out till this very day, the comments against him have diminished his character into nothing more than an incompetent moron who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow! I am not really a fan of this character, but his character was trained in the force. Extensively at that. Compared to Rey who had 0 training. He is also a master of the nights of Ren and he also leads the FO ground forces. So is the FO in the habit of placing such morons in charge of their organization? Well if that is the case, then why should I take the FO seriously for the next movies? Since they are the main antagonists and all?

But the excuses I have seen for Rey are something else! Let is say that she was trained from birth. So if we go by the films and when they show her as a child of what seems to be about 5-7 years old. Well she couldn’t do much from birth to about maybe 5 yrs old. Because you can’t teach an infant saber techniques and mind tricks and what not. So even if I wanted to entertain this moronic idea, how much ACTUAL training could she possibly have had with the events shown in the film? Answer: NOT VERY MUCH! If any at all. But Kylo did state she was untrained in the film after he read her mind. But that little tidbit always gets swept under the rug for some strange reason. I bring it up and I get bombarded with people saying things like,

“well he isn’t fully trained yet!”
“he doesn’t know what he is doing!”
“she had her mind wiped!”
“she is blocking those specific details out!”

And much more stupider stuff. I mean all these excuses don’t amount to squat! It is all assumptions on their part. But I need to disregard what a character specifically says in a film and apply others assumptions and speculations instead?

GET REAL!
Not in this lifetime. Or any other for that matter.

What it boils down to is that Rey pulled force skills out of her ass and the morons clapped and cheered! Pretty sad actually. Abrams dumb ass just took a shit on the force and the importance of force training and the masses smile while he does it. What kills me is that if Lucas did this very same thing, he would have been crucified for it. Yet some moron does it and it is OK.

I couldn’t stand the character of Finn either. He so inconsistent it wasn’t even funny. He decides to leave the FO and gets Poe to help him escape. Poe then asks, “why are you helping me?” Finn says, “cause it’s the right thing to do!” HUH! Um…no. You need him to help you get your ass away from the FO. It had nothing to do with the “right thing” SMH
Then after he meets up with Han and before they go to Maz’s place, Han figures out he is a liar! Han: “you’ve got a bigger problem, women always find out the truth, always!” So Han in all his wisdom takes him along? Good job Han. But wait it gets better! Han then has the balls to take this guy to the Resistance base! WOW! Logic is severely lacking here. Then Finn lies to the Resistance about being able to disable the shields on SK base. When they arrive, he then says he doesn’t know how to disable them and he was just there to get Rey. Yet I have to hear how great Finn is and how wonderful his character is. Sorry but he is a liar and puts people in jeopardy. Not really quality traits to have for being such a “great guy” and all. So what would have happened if they were UNABLE to disable the shields? Well the Resistance fighters would have been unable to do anything for one. And SK base would have destroyed the Resistance planet. But lucky Finn figured out that Phasma would be able to disable the shield and what do you know? She was right there all ready to be captured.

Something else that makes me laugh, even though it is really a small minor detail. But everyone claims Rey is some expert kick ass fighter because she lives on her own and scavenges. Well so did that old lady that she was staring at did too. I guess that old lady must really kick some serious ass to be able to remain alive on Jakku doing the same thing that Rey does! lol But I guess everyone on Jakku mus be an engineering, mechanical, scavenging expert as well. Or else there would be no competitive market then. Because Rey being so gifted and special would give her the advantage and she would be hauling in tons of stuff while the others just scrape by and get the scraps left over. So Rey knowing all about these parts isn’t something special because all the other scavengers would have to be at the same level of knowledge as well. They are also making a living doing the same thing as Rey.